El Mariachi
I’ll be posting a blog soon about meeting Pam Nickoles and the Mustangs El Mariachi and Hope soon. In the meantime, please enjoy this posting by Pam that includes photographs of me at Michael Blake’s ranch.
Hope
Lori Faith Merritt in Pamela Nickoles Blog
Nov 8th, 2009 by Lori Faith
Bit & Bridle Magazine: Photo of the Week Winner 10/05/09
Oct 6th, 2009 by Lori Faith
Rachel Econ
Last year, I photographed a “herd” of ladies at the River Valley Ranch in Tucson, AZ with their horses. One of the young ladies was Rachel Econ with her best friend, a Paint named Scotch. One of the resulting images, the one above, really pulled at my heart strings as it showed the obvious love of a horse and his girl. When Rachel published her first book, Passage to Stomio, (at 13 years old) this image was used for her bio photograph on the book’s back cover. I entered the image in Bit & Bridle Magazine’s Photo of the Week contest last week and was notified today that it won with 71% of the votes at close to 300 votes. Visit Bit & Bridle Magazine’s website here.
Melissa Farlow featured on PhotoShelter
Sep 3rd, 2009 by Lori Faith
- Melissa Farlow with ISPMB Mustangs
The February 2009 issue of National Geographic featured my bio photograph of Melissa Farlow, whom I’d met in 2007 while photographing Mustangs at the ISPMB. We’ve kept in touch and hope to meet again. Recently, PhotoShelter featured her as one of their stable of artists and the image was published again, this time on their website. Melissa, like me, would much rather be behind the camera than in front of it and so I am delighted that she likes this photograph of herself so much. Sometime when I’m out with the horses I’m hoping someone gets a new, wonderful image of me that I like as well as she likes this one. Every photographer needs a photographer!
Cowboys and Indians Magazine and Festival of the West
Sep 3rd, 2009 by Lori Faith
Chasin' Clouds
I have served as the official photographer for The National Festival of the West since 2007 (in 2006, I shared those duties with another photographer). Images from the last several years can be viewed and purchased through my Market Place on the Photography By Faith website. I will be the official photographer for the upcoming 20th anniversary in 2010 as well and this year they are using my photograph, Chasin’ Clouds, for the festival’s signature image and you will see it in all the festival’s promotions. The rider in the image is Will Scott, a cowboy and aspiring actor.
In the October 2009 issue of Cowboys and Indians magazine in the Open Range feature on The Festival of the West by Mark Bedor, six of my images were published. I am posting them here for you to enjoy. These photographs are © Lori Faith Merritt/Photography By Faith ® All Rights Reserved. They may not be copied or re-posted without written permission from me. Please contact me through my website for image/print purchases and/or publication rights.
My photographs are of Hugh O’Brian and Mary Brown
Hugh O'Brien and Mary Brown
Barbara Kennedy
Barbara Kennedy
Skip Clark
Skip Clark
Dick Goodman/Johnny Western/Rusty Richards
Dick Goodman, Johnny Western, and Rusty Richards
Rex Allen Jr.
Rex Allen Jr.
and Charles Acuña.
Charles Acuña
Other images are by Mark Bedor.
Rusty McCall: Punchin’ Cows instead of Clocks (An Interview)
Sep 2nd, 2009 by Lori Faith
Rusty McCall: One of his personal favorite images
I photographed Rusty McCall six months ago at the McCall’s ranch in New Mexico and then a few weeks later at the Texas Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Alpine, Texas. As Heart Sessions, the photography was donated and I’ve gifted prints (one, a large mounted wall print of the image above) to the family since then. This month his mother Deanna is the cover feature article for IM Cowgirl and I’ll be posting a separate entry regarding that publication. In the article by Diane Tribitt, Rusty is mentioned and you can also find out more about this exceptional young cowboy poet at his page on cowboypoetry.com. This week, Rusty agreed to be interviewed by me and I share that interview with you here.
LFM: What is the first poem your remember that you related to so well it felt like you had written it, and why?
Rusty: I was kind of young to remember the significance of my first poem, but it sort of did remind me of one of my first horses, a little bay called Poco. The poem was taken out of a compilation of poems by John Lomax and went like this:
I’ve roamed the Texas prairie,
I followed the cattle trail,
I rode a pitchin’ pony
’til the hair come off his tail.
LFM: You’ve often “ridden the circle.” What’s a favorite story of a time when it was just you and your horse riding the circle?
Rusty: I would say there really is not a favorite time. Every time is different and it’s great to just be Pardner and me riding along without a care in the world.
LFM: If someone were talking about you in 100 years, what would you want them to say about you?
Rusty: If you’ve ever heard Gail Steiger’s “A Cowboy’s Prayer,” there is a line in it that goes:
“And maybe someday when they’re old ‘n gray, they’ll think of me and someone’ll say
He sure made a good hand and we always did know he would be there when we needed him most”
(To read the song lyrics in their entirety, click here)
LFM: You’ve met some great Cowboy Poets in your travels. Who are the Cowboy Poets you most wish you could have met and swapped stories with?
Rusty: Poetry gatherings are different each year. You get to sit and tell stories with different poets every year, so I can say there is not really anybody I haven’t met or talked to. About the only people I can think of would be Ian Tyson and Tom Russell just to tell them how much I love their music. There are always poets and musicians that join the cowboy poetry “family” so I’d would like to meet them and visit with them too. As to the ones who are long gone, I’d like to meet them all, but especially Jack Thorp and S. Omar Barker because they both were from NM and spent some time in this country.
LFM: What is your personal favorite image that was created during our photography sessions when I came to the ranch? Describe the photograph and why it is special to you.
Rusty: I think one of my favorites has to be the one of me sitting on my horse on the top of the hill looking back. It looks like I don’t know that I’m being photographed and I’m just ridin’ out lookin’ for cows.
LFM: Who are some of your best friends and how do they inspire you?
Rusty: I’d say two of my closest friends would have to be Gail Steiger and Amy Auker. I’ve got a lot of good advice from them and we e-mail each other almost every day. They have taught me to live for the moment, because you never know what tomorrow’s going to bring.
LFM:What are you most passionate about in life?
Rusty: I’d say just being outside, living this lifestyle with no clocks to punch and planning your own day.
Deanna and Rusty gave updates on his health and gave permission for me to share them with you.
From Deanna: He has deafness due to his last surgery, but it hasn’t affected his personality or intellect. He still cracks jokes, and as Gail Steiger says, he blows you away with his emails and thoughts. He rides his 4 wheeler all over the trails, and is already thinking about trying to ride his horse before too long. (I don’t think he’s ready for that, yet!) He is able to walk without a cane, but his balance is still a bit shaky, and he can hear a few words occasionally, but not enough for a conversation. He sees the docs September 8th, and that will give us a little better idea of what’s going on and what to expect.
From Rusty: The worst is over, with things slowly starting to get better. I can almost hear again. I can hear “environmental” noises real well and I can hear a few words. I am back to walking on my own two feet, but am still having problems with my balance. It has been six months since I last rode a horse and I really miss it. I would say I’m at about 65% recovered.
Rusty and his horse, Pardner: One of my personal favorites
Peruvian Pasos and a Small Miracle
Sep 2nd, 2009 by Lori Faith
William and the Mares
In April of 2004, I attended a photography workshop with Tony Stromberg and on a late afternoon we visited a Peruvian Paso ranch in New Mexico. There, under towering Cottonwoods, we photographed Peruvian yearlings as they flew around a grassy pasture like a flock of birds. Manes and tails waving, heads held high…their eyes dancing…I fell in love with them as they braved the space between us to bless me with their breath. While the group was eating lunch, I was drawn to a chestnut stallion standing in the barn. I loved him before I even touched him, and silently ran my hands over him and picked up a brush from a nearby tack box to trace the lines of him before he was brought out to an area for us to photograph him. I didn’t know his name, yet felt I’d known him for years. When his handler, Ginger, introduced him to us as Domecq, I realized he was the same horse I’d admired when I saw him in a Robert Vavra book many years before. I am happy to say I got to meet him again and create images of him before time took him to higher pastures.
Now I travel to the Peruvian Pasos and stay with them for days, meeting them in the magical moments before the sun crests the mountains and weaves it’s way through the trees to light the steam coming off their backs in the winter or lay golden kisses over their shoulders in the summer. When the light is “not right” in the middle of the day, I sit with them as they lay in the grass and walk with them as they graze, enjoying watching their herd dynamics and integrating into the herd itself. I tell folks sometimes that I am 99% horse and the other 1% simply allows me to walk upright and carry a camera. When the light starts to dance it’s way toward the horizon I spend several more hours photographing the horses as they graze, interact, and frolic. Why ask them to “do” anything? The beauty of them is that they “are.”
On a recent trip to La Estancia Alegre, I was able to bring my husband with me and let him get to know better this breed of horse that he has rarely met. He is a novice horseman and is just becoming comfortable with the horses as he is also starting to truly love them. On a misty afternoon right before a thunderstorm, we wandered into one of the pastures where four chestnut mares perked their ears and focused bright eyes on us as we meandered toward them. About 100 feet away from them, I asked my husband to kneel down and invite them to come to him with no speech, using only his soul as his voice. I looped around to the left and watched. One mare bobbed her head and took a step toward him. That’s all it took for the other three to join her as they started walking toward him. They were so gentle, approaching him like a foal in the grass, circling to come up behind him and to his sides. My husband looked at me a bit nervously to see if it was “ok” and I smiled, nodded, and walked out to a space in front of him to get in a good position to photograph what I saw was going to happen. Each mare touched him on the shoulder or head with her muzzle and one mare in particular was very curious about him, breathing him in and whisking her muzzle over his head. All thoughts of concern went away and I could see the smile building on my husband’s face. A transformation occured as he found the joy in the experience and I believe this small miracle, gifted by these mares, will stay with him forever.
Way Up High on the Mogollon…
Aug 31st, 2009 by Lori Faith
- William Merritt singing Glory Trail
My husband, William, and I were traveling back from a short vacation in Sedona and decided to take the long way back to Tucson through the Mogollon Rim area north of the towns of Strawberry and Pine, AZ. One of my favorite songs that my husband sings is The Glory Trail, a song based on a poem by cowboy poet Badger Clark originally named High-Chin Bob (read the poem on cowboypoetry.com ). I often ask my husband to play “the kitty-cat song,” which I fondly call it, and so we pulled the truck over at the top of the Mogollons and drove down a dirt campsite road to a spot surrounded by tall pines and no people. There, with two very interested chipmunks, a kaibab squirrel, and some bluejays as the audience, my husband recorded The Glory Trail. To hear him singing, visit his website music page and enjoy!
Art Spur: Heading Out
Aug 31st, 2009 by Lori Faith
Heading Out
One of my images, Heading Out, was published on cowboypoetry.com as an Art Spur feature. Art Spur is described on the website as “It’s been said that a picture is worth a thousand words…we know many that are worthy of a poem. In Art Spur, we invite poets to let selections of Western art and photography inspire their poetry.” I invite you to visit the Art Spur page and read the resulting poetry that was inspired by this image. One of the poems is by my husband and is his first Western poem, about a son who is curious to know what his mother does out at the ranch when the rest of the family goes to church on Sundays. In the last verse, you will find that this woman and I have much in common in our feelings about the sacredness of the nature.
Picture the West: August 31 publication
Aug 31st, 2009 by Lori Faith
Today, several of my images were published for the Picture the West feature on cowboypoetry.com . I wanted to share them here with you as well.
Chasin' Clouds
This image was created for a project with Donnie Blanz (donnieblanz.com) which included his songs and my images and aired on Blue Highways TV (bluehighwaystv.com), a division of RFD-TV. Will Scott, a long-time cowboy and upcoming actor is the rider in this image, made at the Cocoroque Ranch just west of Tucson a couple of years ago. “Chasin’ Clouds” is the image that will be seen in all the promotions for the 20th anniversary of Festival of the West (festivalofthewest.com) in 2010.
A Cowboy's Reward
Meet Colter Moore, a young cowboy and horseman who works on the Price Canyon Ranch in Rodeo, Arizona. While riding out one evening in 2006, Colter paused at the edge of a rim overlooking the valley and looked at the storm clouds rolling in. We made it home just as the rain started to hit.
Morning Gold
In 2006, at the Price Canyon Ranch, I got up early to photograph in the early morning Arizona light…truly golden. The rancher’s daughter came into the meadow by the pond and this image jumped into my camera.
Dawn Blessing
Kristin True, of the White Stallion Ranch in northwest Tucson, was out very early in the morning ponying one of her horses before the busy ranch day started. This image was made in 2006 and it continues to be one of my favorite images of a real working ranch woman. That summer, the entire riding program was being taken care of by women.
Synchronicity Ride
While out at the Price Canyon Ranch in Rodeo, Arizona in 2006, my novice horseman husband (left) came on a ride with Colter Moore and me. He was just starting to “find the canter” and I suggested that he and Colter ride across a stretch of land awhile and that he mimic whatever Colter was doing. The resulting synchronicity was beautiful.
Don Godard
Don Godard of Cornville, Arizona, is a true cowboy whose reputation is well known up in his part of the Arizona desert. In his seventies, he still actively works cattle. I met him while vacationing at a small ranch in Sedona two days after this year’s Arizona Cowboy Poetry Gathering (azcowboypoets.org) in Prescott. Our host let us know that he would be out by the cows early in the morning to take a few head off the ranch. Easy going, full of stories, he had the cattle loaded lickety-split and leaned on the gate to talk a bit before heading off. Sycamore Springs has cottonwoods for cover in a little valley with a spring running through it, and an hour passed in what seemed ten minutes. In that time we went from a handshake to a hug and I do believe I’ve found a new friend.
Hollyhocks: A Poem by Audrey Hankins
Jul 22nd, 2009 by Lori Faith
- Hollyhocks and Straw Bales
My dear friend, Audrey Hankins, gave permission for her poem HOLLYHOCKS to be posted on my blog. This is the first poem I remember hearing Audrey recite. When I was photographing Wilbur-Cruce Spanish Barb horses by the Dragoon Mountains here in Arizona, I saw some growing by the stables and thought of Audrey. I plucked one stem and created this photograph just for her. Enjoy her poem! (© Audrey Hankins 2002. Do not print or re-post without permission.)
Hollyhocks and old ranch wives,
Both thrive on so little care,
Bringing beauty to barren places,
Enduring year after year…..
They’re talkin’ again, the old men,
Reliving their glory days
Cattle they caught, horses they made,
Cowboy pride, cowboy ways.
An old wife moves among them,
Invisible but for coffee pot,
They don’t see her leave, or care that she goes
To smile and tend her hollyhocks.
She shares no glory stories,
Her choice, a supporting role.
Freeing her man to follow his call,
She felt privileged just to fill a hole.
She was the one left holding the gather,
For hours she’d highpoint alone,
‘Til she often wondered if they’d changed the plan,
Forgotten her and gone on home.
Ridin’ drag with her little kids,
She ate dust while planning meals.
No good hand could be spared for that,
He wouldn’t remember how it feels.
She did up the jobs left undone
By men with better things to do
Doctored horses, milked the cow,
Ran the kids to school.
She brushed the backs of her bucket dogies,
The way mother cows lick their calves,
‘Til they glowed and gained on her tender care.
She never nurtured by halves.
Now her waist is thick, her hair is thin,
And her knees are stiff when she walks.
A solitary figure out in the yard,
Humming and tending her hollyhocks…..
Hollyhocks and old ranch wives,
Both thrive on so little care,
Bringing beauty to barren places,
Enduring year after year.
Audrey Hankins, 2002
Gibbs Smith Publisher, 2004, COWBOY POETRY THE REUNION
To see more of Audrey’s work and read about her, visit her page on cowboypoetry.com